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Future Days

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"Future Days" is the season premiere and first episode of the second season, and the tenth episode overall, of HBO's The Last of Us. Written and directed by series co-creator Craig Mazin, the episode aired on HBO on April 13, 2025.

Synopsis[]

Five years after the events in Salt Lake City, a now 19-year-old Ellie makes a discovery while on patrol with her best friend Dina. Back in Jackson, Joel seeks help to mend his relationship with Ellie.

Cast and characters[]

Main cast

Guest starring

Co-starring

Brittany and the Jug Boys[1]

Plot[]

2024[]

On the outskirts of Jackson, Ellie tells Joel to swear that what he told her about what happened at St. Mary's Hospital is true. Joel repeats it, to which a disbelieving Ellie simply replies "Okay," before walking ahead, with Joel following at a distance. Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, the surviving Fireflies bury their dead while discussing their options. Owen proposes they travel to Seattle, where their friend Ed's brother Isaac runs an outfit that they could join. Abby demands that they go after Joel for revenge, but Owen points out they lack the resources or his location. He proposes they instead travel to Seattle, regroup, and hopefully get some leads on where Joel is. The group promises Abby that they will eventually find Joel and kill him.

Five years later[]

After a blow to the face, Ellie wins in a hand-to-hand combat session against Caleb overseen by Jesse. However, Caleb and Jesse admit that Joel told them to pull the first punch. Jesse asks Ellie if she will attend Jackson's New Year celebration. She hedges while warning him not to pull punches.

A construction group working on building a new house in Jackson discover an old gas line that has filled with roots. One of the members, Dina, heads inside the house to talk to Joel, their foreman, who is distracted trying to fix some breakers. Dina sits down to try to learn, but inquires why Ellie, her best friend, is angry at Joel, admitting that it is easy to surmise based on how the two have been behaving. Joel claims it is just a natural case of Ellie turning 19 and acting out, but it becomes clear that his estrangement from Ellie is bothering him. Dina catches him casually using therapy-talk and realizes he is talking to Gail. Embarrassed, Joel tells Dina to clear out the roots and fix the line, and asks her not to tell anyone he is in therapy.

Out on patrol, Ellie and Tommy kill some stray Infected with a sniper rifle. They observe that the number of infected they have been seeing has increased. After finishing for the day, Tommy tells Ellie he plans to take her off patrols and put her on "gatewatch". Ellie easily guesses that Joel told him to do this, which Tommy admits is because he knows Ellie has been going off by herself to kill infected alone, despite Ellie pointing out she does not need to worry due to her immunity. Tommy reluctantly assigns her to a patrol group the following day.

While Joel goes over construction plans, Maria tensely observes as a new group of refugees are escorted into Jackson. Despite Joel stating that they are building as fast as they can, Maria expresses concern that there is not enough room in Jackson for the refugees they are bringing in. Joel argues that they should look after their own, which means leaving the refugees out in the wild. He plays around with Maria and Tommy's son Benji, just as Tommy comes back from patrol. As Joel leaves, Maria pointedly reminds him he was once a refugee.

Joel arrives at Gail's house for a therapy session, where he silently eyes a discarded second pair of boots by the door. Gail comes out offering him whiskey, explaining it is her birthday. Joel gives her payment, some marijuana, which Gail complains is paltry compared to what her husband Eugene grew for her. The session begins, and Joel complains about his usual issues with Ellie and how she is acting out, having moved into their garage to get away from him. Gail, who admits to having been drinking before Joel arrived, declares he needs to stop lying to her, claiming he has just been talking in circles in their past sessions. She accuses him of knowing why Ellie has distanced herself from him and that he needs to say it out loud, even if it scares him. She goes first by admitting her deep-seated anger and hatred towards Joel for killing Eugene, noting she knows why he did it but that every time she sees Joel it reminds her of how angry it makes her. She states that she can't take that admission back, but now that it's in the air there's a chance for her to make things right with Joel, and prompts Joel to go next and say the thing he is afraid to say. Joel fights back tears, but firmly stands and declares "I saved her," before leaving.

Encounter in a supermarket[]

The next day, Dina greets Ellie at the garage to escort her to patrol. She helps Ellie strap her shotgun onto her back, as Ellie suppresses her barely-concealed crush on Dina. Dina invites Ellie to join her and Joel in watching some Curtis and Viper movies, which Ellie ignores. Ellie reunites with Shimmer at the stables before they head to the gates to join the patrol, led by Kat. Jesse gives them their basic instructions, emphasizing that they are only reconnaissance and that if they see anything they need only report it and return so a squad can be dispatched.

As they head down the road, Dina asks Ellie if she is going to the New Years celebration that evening with anyone. She notes Kat is available, but Ellie refuses, citing their past romantic history. Dina slyly observes that Ellie is interested in someone else, and proposes they go together. When Ellie asks why she isn't going with Jesse, Dina reveals they actually broke up, again. The patrol comes to a halt when Kat notices a trail of blood leading down the road. Ellie pushes ahead, despite Kat's protests. They arrive outside the remains of Greenplace Market, where they are stunned to see the corpses of a bear and several dead infected, apparently having killed each other in a fight. Noting evidence that at least one infected survived, Ellie and Dina decide to venture inside the supermarket themselves to take it out, which Kat reluctantly allows.

Hearing at least two infected inside, Dina and Ellie split up and individually manage to take down both Clickers with their knives. Just as they celebrate their win, Ellie falls through the deteriorating building's floor, landing in the main hall of the supermarket. While Dina searches for a way out, Ellie realizes an Infected is in the aisles with her. Spotting it and assuming it to be a Runner, she goads it to attack her, but is surprised when it hides from her, tricking her into letting her guard down before pouncing. Ellie manages to kill it with her handgun, though not before it bites her in the stomach. She hides her injury just as Dina arrives.

New Year's party[]

Back at Jackson, Ellie and Dina report to the town council. Ellie describes the infected as acting more intelligently than any she had seen before, almost as though it was "stalking" her. Tommy chides them for breaking patrol rules, only for the two and Maria to remind him he and Joel often did the same. The council are troubled by this and the report of Infected working together to kill a bear. Tommy claims it could have been a one-off incident, but Maria points out if this is a trend among Infected it could easily become a horde. At home, Ellie uses her knife to cut into her bite wound and disguise it, before stitching it closed. As she journals in the garage, where she vents about her crush on Dina, Joel enters to check if she is coming to the party. He notices her guitar and sees that her strings are worn out, and immediately leaves to put replacements on it.

At the party, Ellie longingly watches Dina dance with the other men in town. She and Jesse commiserate over how embarrassing it is attending these parties while single. Ellie tries to encourage him that he and Dina will be back together in two weeks, but Jesse simply replies that it will not happen this time. Dina finds Ellie and drags her onto the dance floor. As the two slow dance, an inebriated Dina starts to flirt with Ellie both verbally and physically. Eventually, the two share a tender kiss, only to be rudely interrupted by Seth, an older man, who accuses them of disrupting a "family event" and calls them homophobic slurs. Just as Ellie moves to confront him, Joel appears and shoves Seth to the floor, demanding he get out. Ellie turns her anger to Joel, telling him she doesn't need his help. Joel leaves in shame, while Gail watches with sadness.

As the rest of Jackson celebrate the New Year, Ellie returns home where she sees Joel playing with her newly restrung guitar on the porch. The two stare at each other for a moment before Ellie storms back into her garage alone, leaving Joel on the porch. Unbeknownst to the town's residents, the roots that the construction group found in the gas line contain live cordyceps tendrils. In the mountains surrounding Jackson, Abby's group spots the town's lights and advance.

Reception[]

The episode received mostly positive reviews with many appreciating the faithfulness to the game's opening and the expansion of life in Jackson. Some criticism was given to the episode for its slow pacing and the jarring time jump, with some expressing frustration in the sudden unexplained change to Joel and Ellie's relationship off-screen. One change from the game that was met with a mixed response was the reveal of Abby's motivations at the start of the episode; some liked that her role was clearer here than in the game but others thought it detracted from the shock of her actions that occurred later in the game and in the following episode. It scored 7.5 out of 10 on IMDB, the lowest across both seasons and also from the lowest number of reviewers, with only 24,000.[2]

Transcript[]

Main article: Future Days/Transcript

Behind the scenes[]

Featured music[]

  • "Love Buzz" by American rock band Nirvana plays over the radio during the scene where Ellie is disassembling and cleaning a pistol in her house. She turns the radio off when Dina interrupts her by knocking on the door, there to pick her up for patrol. Nirvana is known as one of the leading artists to emerge from the Seattle grunge scene—a city that would later play a significant role in Ellie's journey in the game and series. Their song "You Know You're Right" was used in the official trailer for the second season.
  • "Little Sadie" and "Ecstasy" by American bluegrass band Crooked Still are performed live by a fictional band named Brittany and the Jug Boys at the New Year's Eve dance held at the Jackson church. The latter plays during Ellie and Dina's dance scene.
    • The band's performers are primarily made up of Crooked Still members, including vocalist Aoife O'Donovan, fiddler Brittany Haas (who the band is most likely named after), banjoist Greg Liszt, and bassist Corey DiMario. Additionally, Gustavo Santaolalla portrays the ronroco player. Santaolalla serves as the composer for both the video games and the television series of The Last of Us, and his appearance is a nod to his cameo in The Last of Us Part II, where the player can find him sitting in the town of Jackson playing a banjo.
    • "Little Sadie" originally plays during the same scene in the game, first appearing in the E3 2018 trailer. Additional songs and references to Crooked Still, including "Ecstasy" and their 2006 album Shaken by a Low Sound, can be discovered throughout the game.

Production[]

  • The episode's opening scene of Joel and Ellie reuses footage from the previous season's finale "Look for the Light", including additional footage that was cut from the original episode showing Joel's reaction to Ellie's response of "Okay", followed by Ellie walking ahead, with Joel following from a distance. Craig Mazin made the call to remove it at the time as he felt ending the season on a quasi-cliffhanger, cutting right after Ellie says "Okay" with no indication of what happens next, was more thematically appropriate.[3] For its use in this episode, Mazin and Neil Druckmann felt it was important to establish the emotional distance between Joel and Ellie to help set up the season.[4]

Easter eggs and references[]

  • The title of the episode is a direct reference to the song of the same name by American rock band Pearl Jam from their 2013 album Lightning Bolt. The song was originally used in a scene from the stage adaptation The Last of Us: One Night Live and was later adapted into the prologue of The Last of Us Part II, where Joel sings it to Ellie before gifting her a guitar. It was played once more as an alternate end credits song for completing the game on grounded difficulty. The song was additionally featured in the teaser trailer for the second season. Neil Druckmann, creative director of the video games and co-creator of the television series, is a longtime Pearl Jam fan and has collaborated with the band on numerous occasions for both the games and the show, including featuring their song "All or None" in "Left Behind", and a new version of "Present Tense" in the end credits to "Feel Her Love". In addition, the second season featured a vinyl copy of the band's debut album Ten in Ellie's house.
  • Greenplace Market, a location originally explored by Ellie and Dina while on patrol in the game, makes an appearance in the episode. Inside the supermarket, Ellie observes an Employee of the Month board featuring a dog for the July 2003 slot. This is a direct reference to the game, where the date the dog was honored as Employee of the Month serves as the combination to unlock an optional safe.
  • Curtis and Viper, a fictional film series Joel is a fan of, is mentioned in the episode as a direct reference to The Last of Us Part II. In the show, Dina planned to watch the movies with Joel and invited Ellie to join them, whereas in the game, Ellie had intended to invite Joel to watch the film instead.

Gallery[]

Promotional images[]

Official stills[]

Behind the scenes[]

Videos[]

External links[]

References[]

v · d · e
Episodes of HBO's The Last of Us
Season 1
"When You're Lost in the Darkness" · "Infected" · "Long, Long Time" · "Please Hold to My Hand" · "Endure and Survive" · "Kin" · "Left Behind" · "When We Are in Need" · "Look for the Light"
Season 2
"Future Days" · "Through the Valley" · "The Path" · "Day One" · "Feel Her Love" · "The Price" · "Convergence"
Season 3
TBA
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